By Monique Marie Hamm June 13, 2014 5:00 pm Washington Examiner
Former Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal delivered a speech on the Gettysburg Battlefield last Wednesday calling for a universal national service program. It would give all U.S. citizens a chance to volunteer in their community with help from the federal government. This would address the “imperceptible,” but “insidious decline in our trust in one another, in our connection to our communities, in our sense of duty to serve our nation.” The mere mention of another federal “welfare” program instantly activates the gag reflex among most modern conservatives and libertarians. However, National Review founder William F. Buckley, Jr. might not be so appalled by the notion. In fact he suggested a similar idea about 20 years ago, based solely on conservative ideals.
In Gratitude: Reflections on What We Owe to Our Country, Buckley proposes a national service program that would require all young adults to serve their local community for one year in exchange for a small living stipend, educational scholarships, and a $10,000 tax reimbursement after college graduation. Their service options would range from military service to assisting in nursing homes or libraries, whatever program they feel called to participate in. The time spent in the program would help repay the “debt” everyone owes to civilization. It includes the debt Americans owe to soldiers who fought and died for liberty. It is the debt we owe to those who took great and sometimes heroic risks to make life better for future generations.
Buckley argues that such a debt cannot have a measurable price. Rather, it can only be repaid with actions performed out of gratitude for the product that created the debt. A music lover could “repay” Bach’s contributions to culture by volunteering at a local symphony. A poetry connoisseur may decide to provide his services at a library. Whatever form of service a person chooses would be performed out of gratitude for our predecessors who built our very civilization; a fundamental principle of conservatism.
Conservatism is a perception “that the past is alive in the present,” Buckley argued. It is also a movement that perceives “connections between the individual and the community beyond those that relate to the state or to the marketplace.” Where liberal service reforms seek to reinforce the connection of the individual to the government, Buckley’s version of national service would work to strengthen ties between the community and the individual, the past and the present.
Another key distinction between Buckley’s proposal and other liberal alternatives lies in the extent of the government’s role. Unlike federal welfare programs or current national service groups, such as AmeriCorps, Buckley’s system would not allow the federal government to “finance service.” Rather, his national service “franchise,” as he called it, would be a barebones government office that focused simply on providing the small benefits to its “veterans” and collecting information to keep the program running.
However solid its logical foundation, any concept of national service may be difficult for conservatives to stomach after recent federal expansions, such as Obamacare. At a time where government overreach is rampant, it is necessary that conservatives reexamine the philosophical foundations of their ideology. Instead of solely focusing on eliminating wasteful spending, perhaps they could also devise conservative ways to further promote and protect private charities by promoting more tax credits and incentives for individuals to dedicate more time for volunteering. If conservatives performed such efforts, they could help the nation live up to Lincoln’s call for service in the Gettysburg Address.
“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us —that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”